> [!NOTE]+ Meta > Author:: Eva Veeber, Erja Syrjäläinen, Ene Lind > Reference:: Techne Series A, 22(1), 15–29 > Date:: 2025 > Tags:: #warp > WeftLinks:: [[Psychological value of craft]] > Claim:: [[Claim - Working with your hands stimulates mental development]] > [!SUMMARY] Summary > The cerebellum is integrated with the frontal lobe. It is developed through physical activity. Craft provides mental structure. ### Highlights Craft education helps adolescents grow by developing both their minds and motor skills. It teaches important life skills and helps young people understand themselves and the world. Engaging in craft activities supports brain development and builds coping strategies for modern life. paper focuses on the sensitive age of the (pre)adolescence (10-16 year olds) In Estonia and Finland, crafts has had a permanent position as a school subject (Lind 2009, Pöllänen 2009) although its appreciation and value have diminished. The craft process also produces a concrete experience that is an alternative to consumerism and materialism. Pöllänen's study (2013) shows that craft offers a tool to handle the demands of the wasting and throwaway culture. *generalized resistance resources* (GRRs). According to Antonovsky, GRRs are biological, material and psychosocial factors that provide one with sets of life experiences that can be characterized by 1) consistency, 2) participation in shaping outcomes, and 3) a more favourable underloadoverload balance. In his 1979 book, Antonovsky set forth five types of GRRs: artifactual-material (e.g. money, shelter, clothing, etc.), cognitive and emotional (e.g. knowledge, identity), valuative-attitudinal (e.g. coping strategies), interpersonal-relational (e.g. social ties, commitment), and macrosociocultural (e.g. culture, religion, magic). With some reservations, he adds a sixth, music (i.e. something that helps to create order in chaos). we could add another resistance resource to Antonovsky's list: engagement in craft activities. Making craft offers adolescents an experience of consistency, shaping outcomes, and balancing under- and overload. First, consistent experiences arise from the following characteristics of craft-making: creating something has logical steps, the materials and techniques carry certain rules, one is made familiar with one's cultural heritage and traditions, and one becomes involved in the designing of a product. Second, craft offers the possibility to shape the outcome through the design process, which, along with the actual object making, clearly relies on one's input. And third, when working on a craft project one can practice balancing underand overload, for example by learning how to choose a project that is challenging enough and yet doable. Schmahmann (2004) states, that the cerebellum is not only a motor control device, but also an essential component of the brain mechanisms responsible for personality, mood and intelligence. , Budding & Chidekel (2012), who suggest that the cerebellum allows the brain to anticipate the outcome of sensory-motor behaviour, meaning that higher order thinking skills are an extension of the motor control system. the process of rehearsal, used in music and acting training, for example, implements a strategy for focusing attention that enhances memory, and that this skill transfers to other cognitive functions involving memory (Jonides 2008). Research with both primates and humans has shown that learning and practicing motor skills can cause substantial alterations in different brain regions, such as inducing grey and white matter changes, thickening of the cortex and corpus callosum (the thick band of nerve fibres that divides the brain into left and right hemispheres), and the appearance of new active cortical fields Children work more with their hands in elementary school, but by the time they need the most diversified learning experiences and when these experiences would be most effective (the restless adolescent years, age 10 to 16), they are expected to "settle down" and be able to acquire knowledge of more theoretical subjects just by sitting, listening, reading and writing at their desks.